The last time the Scene featured the Belcourt Theatre on the cover, in January 1999, the occasion couldn’t have been sadder. A heroic effort to operate the historic Hillsboro Village cinema as an independent arthouse had failed. After steady losses, the theater was closing its doors. And while its owners at the time, led by the late real estate mogul Charles Hawkins, hoped to preserve it, the odds of its becoming a parking lot or drugstore were strong. Its future looked bleak.

Sixteen years later, The Belcourt is again on the Scene’s cover. And once again, the theater is closing — sort of.